March 17.—I have taken a certain amount of interest during this past winter in a Kite which has been hovering round the Hungjao district. One cannot swear, from casual observation, to the exact identity of any lone bird such as this; but it seems pretty certain that it is a Black-eared Kite (Milvus migrants lineatus)... and I would say an unmated old bird which has somehow got left over in the general deal of life: it isa lonely bird and its dull, rather bedraggled, plumage tells its story fairly clearly. Such a bird is generally of little interest, but it has reminded me of two things which are worth making a note of. The first is that Kites, in general, have always been the cause of some confusion. The most common Kite in India is properly called the Pariah Kite, but is locally known by such names as "Chil" or "Mallagedda"—or what you will; and such a bird would probably be the nearest in appearance io our Black-eared Kite: but there is another Indian bird, rather like our bird, except that it has a whitish head and neck, called the Brahminy Kite; hence, many of our early settlers (possibly with Poonah cents) began to call this a Bromley Kite: actually there is no such bird as a Bromley Kite...but it reminded many of them of the early morning train to Liverpool Street, so the name has stuck. And I can only repeat that a "Bromley Kite" ig a veritable Mrs. Arriss of the bird world. The next thought conveyed to me by this weary wandering bird, is that even the largest and clumsiest of the feathered kind can have appealing voices. The Kite is usually silent; but when it starts its mating call it gives one of the weirdest, most stirring cries of a soul in pain...a cry which would put to shame the efforts of the whole female chorus of "Rose-Marie" when giving the Indian love-call...and I can't say more than that. With which thought I say Farewell to my aged Hungjao iriend—zs-w.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.